Reply #2: President Clinton, Sir

[The Magistrate]

Is quite correct in his general assesment of the situation. Israel ought indeed to relinquish the lands over-run in '67. The provision of an international monitoring force would be useful during the disengagement. It would, however, present certain problems, not the least of which would be finding nations willing to put their soldiers in the middle of this long quarrel, for they would certainly become targets of violence, since a genuine compromise on these lines would be unpopular with many, and those enforcing it would be seen by these not as neutrals, but adherents to the enemy side.

On the other matter you raise in some japery, Sir, President Clinton is hardly engaged. He does not, for example, question the right of Israel to exist, or to defend itself by military means, or allege it to be a leading world example of racist crime, or that its foundation was atrocity unrefined. These are views which, pressed hard at least, strike many as irrational and other-wordly, and are frequently those of persons afflicted with bigotry.